Everything you need to know about running and life and any other random crap I find bouncing through my mind like a ping pong ball. And always be sure your shoes are happy.

Well, that sucked. YAY!!!

I did six miles this afternoon and it sucked 🙂 I can’t hold a pace under 9:45 without an oxygen mask dropping from the overhead, I’m maxing my HR and my heart looked pretty much like this:

Only it wasn’t because I saw a sexy bunny.

This means that, one, I really am back to running because I’m no longer jogging along comfy just for the sake of being on the pavement. Two, I’m running. You can’t complain about a run if you can’t run. Thus I had the very sweet luxury of running along thinking *&^% this SUCKS. I SUCK. This run SUCKS, and as I thought it I found myself smiling with the joy of a sucking run.

This week has sort of sucked. First, I guess because Jen and I had talked about him, and then I wrote about it, Tuesday night I dreamed of my brother. I never dreamed of him when he died. I wanted to, I’d have taken any chance to see him even if just in a dream, but it never happened. This dream was incredibly real. Nothing special, Bret I were talking, about mom and anything else you’d talk to your brother about if you were in the kitchen one afternoon, and I remember nothing other than that. Then I woke up, which surprised me because I thought I was awake talking to my brother, and I realized it wasn’t real. It was SO real, and then it just wasn’t, it didn’t exist, and I started crying. I couldn’t quit and poor Hubs was lying there patting me on the shoulder. “Is it Murphy? Are you upset about Murphy?” but I just kept snorting all over, my pillow wet with tears. It was, quite frankly, rather stupid. Here I am, again, with my body doing something I have no control over. I mean, I tried. I bit the pillow, I clenched my jaw, I stuffed my face in the pillow – nothing. Just kept crying, except when I stuffed my face in the pillow because then when I sniffed I kinda choked because of course there was a pillow stuffed into my face. I guess actually you could say it was successful, in that I did quit crying while I choked. Anyway, I finally drifted off to sleep still crying and then the next morning I looked like I’d run into a wall.

When I woke I realized I was going to have to call the Vet about Murph T. Dog because he’d been limping around since Monday afternoon and now he wouldn’t eat or drink, and he kept yelping when he moved wrong. Mostly he just wouldn’t move at all and I had to lift him into the Explorer and back out of the Explorer and he does weigh about 36 pounds hanging there in my arms, miserable. Then he pooped on the Vet’s front door step. “My dog just pooped on your door step,” I announced, carrying the limp bag of dog cement into the office, “do you have some paper towels I can use?” They were very nice and refused to let me try to pick up poop while holding the aforementioned 36 pounds of useless dog and one of the techs cleaned up my dog’s poop for me. I’m sure this is not the first time she’s had to do that but I still felt bad.

He has a couple vertebra that have been a problem in the past and sure enough, he hurt it somehow, so they filled him with shots and I carted home two pill bottles about the size of a jelly jar. He moped around in pain and finally hid under the bed, having eaten one little doggie biscuit and two very large, peanut butter wrapped pills.

Thursday morning he came downstairs almost sort of perky and Chunk was not upset when she saw him so I figured that was a good thing since she gets rather insulted when people don’t feel well, like it’s a bother to her somehow. “Oh, I’m sorry I’m vomiting out most of my insides, Chunk, I know you find it offensive,” I feel compelled to apologize. Oddly, despite her complete irritation and disdain for all things sick or injured she is strangely fascinated, roaming about smacking inanimate objects and the offender, yet she refuses to leave their side. “Smack! Quit it!,” she seems to be saying and it makes me think she was a neurosurgeon in her past life as my experience with neurosurgeons evidenced about the same level of compassion, not that I’m bitter or angry, just stating facts.

Unfortunately Thursday afternoon he stood up, yelped quite loudly and refused to move, just stood there, head hanging, heart pounding. Well crap, I thought, maybe he’s ruptured a disc or something. It was too late to call the vet so I carried him upstairs, he scooted under the bed and never came back out. In fact he appeared ready to stay under the bed the rest of his life so this morning I had to get the mattress and box springs off the bed and carry him downstairs. Despite not eating much in the past 48 hours I can attest that he has not lost any weight, and we repeated Wednesday morning only omitting the pooping on the door step, which made me happy.

They knocked him out with a muscle relaxer, Xrayed his back and gave him some different steroids and gave me another big bottle of pills. Since Murphy was splayed out in a kennel like a freshman at 4am during rush week I left him there and will get him later this afternoon. The Vet prefers – and we concur – to try to treat this medically. Surgery is an option but I really hope that is not going to happen. I expect if you could ask Murphy he’d agree.

So – my week kinda sucked but it’s a luxury to have a sucky week with a tough run and a sick dog because I know a whole bunch of people with way worse things going on, marriages and cancer and death so I think what you should do is ruefully shake your head at this week’s travails and go kiss your loved ones and also kiss your dogs and cats despite the fact you will get hair in your nose and sneeze.

LOL! It managed to stay intact and I finished the mileage 🙂 It was not a fun journey as you crazy followers know many times over (OMG there she goes again…) but as with everything in life good things come, even when they seem like not so good things.